Optical fiber technology is well suited for communications applications because optical fibers have a wide transmission bandwidth and relatively low attenuation. However, optical fiber interfaces to electronic and optical networks are expensive to manufacture because of the difficulty associated with mounting laser transmitting and receiving devices onto substrates and aligning them with separately mounted optical fibers. The difficulties generally are associated with manufacturing components with precise tolerances and mounting components at precise locations within precise tolerances. To overcome these difficulties, the last mounting and aligning processes have been done actively, with beams being transmitted between the optical fibers and active optical components, to ensure that the completed assembly is properly aligned and functional.
Conventionally, optical assemblies have incorporated at least three main elements for connecting optical fibers to active optical components: a connector body, a substrate onto which active optical components are mounted and a platform for supporting and attaching both the connector and the substrate. While this conventional technique has been implemented to create optical assemblies, it would be desirable to create assemblies with fewer and/or smaller components.
Accordingly, there is a need for an optical assembly and method for mounting a connector and a substrate without the need for a separate platform. The assembly and method ideally should be compatible with edge emitting and surface emitting laser technology. There is a further need for an optical assembly that incorporates features to facilitate alignment and interconnection of mating parts without greatly increasing the size of the assembly. There is a further need for an optical assembly that incorporates features to facilitate internal mounting and alignment with an economy of parts and external mounting and alignment of mating parts to the assembly.